Bug in translation of default feedback

[KZerva]

Hi all,

The 3 strings of code, that appear as the default feedback in the question, for some reason remain in English even if these strings were translated to Greek ages ago. 

I checked the history of the translation, and it seems that the original script has been updated a few times over the year from plain text to HTML and back to text again. Do you need to change these to HTML again? I can't see any other reason why these keep appearing in English.

For people who are using STACK in a different language than English, have you come across this issue? Is there a workaround it (apart from changing these 3 lines to the correct language in every single question)?

[aharjula]

This is indeed an issue. Unfortunately, those strings get their default values at the question creation time based on the system's default values, and those are set by default to the localised strings at the install time and at the language active at that moment. Basically, that is always English...

@sangwinc, if the default question strings were not fixed by default and instead were something like [[commonstring key="defaultprtcorrectfeedback"/]], they would be evaluated at the time of use. However, that solution has some other issues:

1. The string might not match the localisation of the question, as it would be tied to the user interface language at the time of usage. And the question might negotiate some other language if it has any language options at all.
2. Such cryptic code blocks in those fields might scare away authors from modifying those fields, and those fields are modifiable by design.

[aharjula]

As to workarounds, yes, you could change the default values for new questions at the system level. Possibly even to use localised strings instead of a fixed value.

But that typically happens too late, i.e., the default values have already been stamped to the created questions, so people end up fixing the questions. Possibly in bulk, as in XML or whatever gitsync methods one might have available.

[KZerva]

Thanks Matti,

For new questions, that seems a reasonable solution. It's not a big task to change the language to existing ones, they aren't that many.

[sangwinc]

OK, so I'm very sorry @KZerva about this. I think the better solution is to have [[commonstring key="defaultprtcorrectfeedback"/]].

Yes, the question might negotiate some other language if it has any language options at all. Other feedback options (e.g. automatically generated feedback from PRTs) does get localised.

I propose we make this suggested change.

[aharjula]

After making that change, and again after it comes out in a new release. It might make sense to notify (e.g. via the change log or some more visible channel) existing users about it, as systems that have already installed STACK already have the old default fixed in their settings; they will not simply change to any new default. Such existing users may need to instruct their system admins to change those values if they have not already done so.

[sangwinc]

Thanks @aharjula, yes just thinking through things like that. We also need to update the materials in the STACK library, but that's going to be tied up with the new "XML fragments" options for use with gitsync. By not exporting those options as part of the question when they match the default we keep this clean.